Pickup trucks and vehicles having open cargo compartments, often called beds, are sometimes used for tall and bulky loads, such as refrigerators and dressers. Many trucks are purchased by people having only an occasional need for carting goods, such as weekend home repair products, or lawn fertilizer. For these truck owners, a pickup truck is a potentially useful vehicle that is can make it easy to carry bulky loads, but perhaps more importantly, also serve as a primary transport vehicle most of the time. It is important for this kind of user to have a pickup truck that can double as a family vehicle, without having the look of a contractor's vehicle.
Tie down brackets and after-market fencing installed at the edges of the bed are known to contain and immobilize bulky cargo being transported in the bed. The fencing solution particularly involves unsightly additions of fencing installed to raise the sidewalls of the truck. This is often called sake and rail fencing and it typically involves fencing installed so that when not in use, it is exposed to viewing on the inner face of the side walls, or has to be manually uninstalled and stored elsewhere. Thus, the background art discloses after-market elevated sidewalls where the user has options to deploy devices that enable him to erect the fencing with attachments against the sidewalls, rotate a hinged extension upward, or extend fencing stored against the sidewalls.
An additional problem occasionally encountered is transport of bulky cargo with a prospect of the inclement weather during the trip. Prior art often employs separately purchased plastic sheeting. The user then covers or wraps the cargo with rope or tape. Pre-installed cargo bed tops are typically installed at the top of the side wall or have limited additional added height, usually not more than the height of the cab at the front of the truck. These are often unusable for tall and bulky articles. So covering the cargo or the entire bed can be helpful, but again is often subject to the vagaries of ad hoc solutions.